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Lots of understanding about how to prevent and cure cancer is ignored and is based on strengthening the immune system and giving it the building blocks it needs

Lots of understanding about how to prevent and cure cancer is ignored and is based on strengthening the immune system and giving it the building blocks it needs to do its job (or avoiding poisons that make it harder for the immune system to work). Maybe some of it is just too cheap and easy -- and yet also expensive and difficult in the sense that it involves a radical change to culture and lifestyle? See, for example: "We Can Win the War on Cancer - Right Now - with Author Joel Fuhrman" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qOKsPkfIWw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qOKsPkfIWw "The underlying theme of this presentation today is that the diseases that afflict Americans are unnatural. They're not the result of genetics [or] predominantly from aging -- in other words cancer, heart attacks, strokes, [and] dementia don't have to happen and they shouldn't [happen] if we live in .. the way [our] bodies have been made and [are] biologically designed -- if we live a natural life [and] consume the nutrients humans require to be normal. Being normal means no cancer. ..." As just one example, he explains how animal products, especially dairy, raise IGF-1 which contributes to cancer, and a white-bread bagel drives insulin levels high which also contributes to cancer -- with both driving normally useful hormones into cancer causing ranges. How many oncologists probably still eat bagels and have dairy? There are some funny animations about this in "Fat Sick & Nearly Dead 2". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDeTKomY4P8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDeTKomY4P8 Here is one of those animations on the immune system needing enough good food to do its job: "Understanding The Root Cause of Chronic Illnesses" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlDPzdTciM8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlDPzdTciM8 (Ironic to see this modded down within minutes...)

Retric 8y ago
A heathy lifestyle can reduce the rate of cancer, but not eliminate it. Animals got cancer hundreds of millions of years ago. Long before any of our modern toxic lifestyle. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2019/02/ridiculously-rare-cancer-found-fossil-leg-turtle-triassic-paleontology/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2019/02/ridiculou... Note, most types of cancer would not show up in the fossil record becase they don’t obviously impact bones. But, even still there are plenty of known examples of prehistoric cancer.
- pdfernhout 8y ago
  So what? The immune system in a healthy person can eliminate most cancer. That's part of what it does. The problem is most people are not healthy -- in terms of eating a healthy diet similar to what Dr. Joel Fuhrman outlines as well as other healthy lifestyle aspects (lower stress, avoiding toxins, periodic calories restriction even if just eating dinner earlier, etc.). Healthy nutrition eliminates most cancer through boosting the immune system and also by avoiding mutagens. If we get rid of, say, 90%+ of cancer, that is a tremendous win even if there is still 10% to be dealt with. That is a far bigger win than most experimental therapies overall are promising. As just one example from the video, over the course of 30 years, Korean women's rate of breast cancer went up 500% by eating less vegetables and eating more animal products, oils, and sugar. While correlation is not causation, and there are other complicating factors like younger Korean women having children later in life, and they are getting less sleep from using computers more (sleep also helps prevent cancer https://www.businessinsider.com/what-happens-when-you-dont-get-enough-sleep-2017-12 https://www.businessinsider.com/what-happens-when-you-dont-g... ), when you consider the basic nutritional science and many other studies, is a very clear example of dose-response in the Western diet causing cancer. Reverse that process, and return to a diet with more vegetables (and get more sleep), and presumably about 80% of breast cancer in Korea will go away. That would be a big win for Korean women. And not only would breast cancer rates go down, all cancer rates would go down. And so would rates of other lifestyle disease like heart disease, dementia, and diabetes. And in any case, even if we had a magic bullet that eliminated 100% of cancer after you got it like so many researchers are pursuing using billions of dollars of research funds (so the result can be patented and profitized) -- that magic bullet would still not prevent diabetes, heart disease, and dementia which are also primarily consequences of Western diet and lifestyle. Nor would that magic bullet make most people feel tremendously better the way a healthier diet and lifestyle can. As priorities go, we are almost totally ignoring the low hanging fruit of promoting healthy diet and health lifestyle in all sorts of ways that will prevent most of this suffering. For a community level intervention on all this, see the book "BlueZones" and related web site ( https://www.bluezones.com/services/blue-zones-project/ https://www.bluezones.com/services/blue-zones-project/ ). "Health" insurance will pay $50,000 for a heart bypass but it will pay $0 for the vegetables that would prevent or even reverse heart disease. Likewise, health insurance will pay $100,000 for oncology drugs for cancer but $0 for the vegetables that will prevent it. As health priorities go, that is insane. And insane national health priorities make it harder for those individuals who want to eat healthier and live healthier -- because there is less community-level social support and less supportive infrastructure (sidewalks, walking trails, nearby groceries with fresh produce, restaurants with healthier menus, employee wellness plans, nutritious school lunches, and so on.) As one more example of how this is a broader social problem, the subsidies the USA gives to agribusiness are completed inverted compared to what humans need to stay healthy: http://www.nbcnews.com/id/8904252/ns/health-fitness/t/farm-subsidies-not-sync-food-pyramid/ http://www.nbcnews.com/id/8904252/ns/health-fitness/t/farm-s... "The government will spend $17 billion subsidizing farmers this year. Rather than focusing on the producers of good-for-you fruits and vegetables — half its subsidies go to grain farmers, whose crops feed animals for meat, milk and eggs and become cheap ingredients in processed food."

Retric 8y ago

A heathy lifestyle can reduce the rate of cancer, but not eliminate it. Animals got cancer hundreds of millions of years ago. Long before any of our modern toxic lifestyle. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2019/02/ridiculously-rare-cancer-found-fossil-leg-turtle-triassic-paleontology/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2019/02/ridiculou... Note, most types of cancer would not show up in the fossil record becase they don’t obviously impact bones. But, even still there are plenty of known examples of prehistoric cancer.

pdfernhout 8y ago
So what? The immune system in a healthy person can eliminate most cancer. That's part of what it does. The problem is most people are not healthy -- in terms of eating a healthy diet similar to what Dr. Joel Fuhrman outlines as well as other healthy lifestyle aspects (lower stress, avoiding toxins, periodic calories restriction even if just eating dinner earlier, etc.). Healthy nutrition eliminates most cancer through boosting the immune system and also by avoiding mutagens. If we get rid of, say, 90%+ of cancer, that is a tremendous win even if there is still 10% to be dealt with. That is a far bigger win than most experimental therapies overall are promising. As just one example from the video, over the course of 30 years, Korean women's rate of breast cancer went up 500% by eating less vegetables and eating more animal products, oils, and sugar. While correlation is not causation, and there are other complicating factors like younger Korean women having children later in life, and they are getting less sleep from using computers more (sleep also helps prevent cancer https://www.businessinsider.com/what-happens-when-you-dont-get-enough-sleep-2017-12 https://www.businessinsider.com/what-happens-when-you-dont-g... ), when you consider the basic nutritional science and many other studies, is a very clear example of dose-response in the Western diet causing cancer. Reverse that process, and return to a diet with more vegetables (and get more sleep), and presumably about 80% of breast cancer in Korea will go away. That would be a big win for Korean women. And not only would breast cancer rates go down, all cancer rates would go down. And so would rates of other lifestyle disease like heart disease, dementia, and diabetes. And in any case, even if we had a magic bullet that eliminated 100% of cancer after you got it like so many researchers are pursuing using billions of dollars of research funds (so the result can be patented and profitized) -- that magic bullet would still not prevent diabetes, heart disease, and dementia which are also primarily consequences of Western diet and lifestyle. Nor would that magic bullet make most people feel tremendously better the way a healthier diet and lifestyle can. As priorities go, we are almost totally ignoring the low hanging fruit of promoting healthy diet and health lifestyle in all sorts of ways that will prevent most of this suffering. For a community level intervention on all this, see the book "BlueZones" and related web site ( https://www.bluezones.com/services/blue-zones-project/ https://www.bluezones.com/services/blue-zones-project/ ). "Health" insurance will pay $50,000 for a heart bypass but it will pay $0 for the vegetables that would prevent or even reverse heart disease. Likewise, health insurance will pay $100,000 for oncology drugs for cancer but $0 for the vegetables that will prevent it. As health priorities go, that is insane. And insane national health priorities make it harder for those individuals who want to eat healthier and live healthier -- because there is less community-level social support and less supportive infrastructure (sidewalks, walking trails, nearby groceries with fresh produce, restaurants with healthier menus, employee wellness plans, nutritious school lunches, and so on.) As one more example of how this is a broader social problem, the subsidies the USA gives to agribusiness are completed inverted compared to what humans need to stay healthy: http://www.nbcnews.com/id/8904252/ns/health-fitness/t/farm-subsidies-not-sync-food-pyramid/ http://www.nbcnews.com/id/8904252/ns/health-fitness/t/farm-s... "The government will spend $17 billion subsidizing farmers this year. Rather than focusing on the producers of good-for-you fruits and vegetables — half its subsidies go to grain farmers, whose crops feed animals for meat, milk and eggs and become cheap ingredients in processed food."